ShareTheBoard: Back to Boards in a Digital Era

Marcin Demkowicz, Head of Product

Learning in a classroom has always been a very humanrich interaction because every student’s attention is directed toward the teacher and, historically, their primary tool—the board. When the pandemic struck, access to this education format was cut off, and educators transitioned to a digital-first process overnight. The shift resulted in a reduction in student engagement and information retention, prompting Marcin Demkowicz and his wife, Olivia - both educators - to reflect on the current situation. This inspired the creation of ShareTheBoard, a tool that returns to the roots of teaching by reintroducing boards in this digital era of remote learning.

ShareTheBoard is a technology solution provider for education with an ingenious software solution, the company’s namesake, that leverages AI and machine learning to digitize handwritten content in real-time. This not only makes it possible to share whiteboards with remote students, it also means that teachers do not have to learn any new tools or processes. Furthermore, they can maintain eye contact while teaching and convey a natural body language - all essential to delivering a more human-rich remote learning experience.

“We put the onus of adapting to remote communication on technology and let teachers teach as they always have,” says Marcin Demkowicz, Head of Product at ShareTheBoard.

Board-centered teaching has been an essential part of learning for decades, and it goes beyond pedagogical effectiveness. ShareTheBoard software enables teachers to rely on this scientifically proven teaching method, which allows them to operate at the same pace as students while remaining aware of the content they provide, resulting in a seamless education process.

ShareTheBoard’s software targets three key pillars to make board-centric remote learning seamless—content legibility, interactivity, and content capture.

In remote learning, content legibility is a concern as the video quality is generally poor, and it is difficult to display a physical board. This can be compared to an in-class setting, where a student seated in the front is more likely to interact and be attentive compared to those in the back of the classroom.

The ShareTheBoard software digitizes content and presents it clearly, addressing this challenge in legibility and promoting focus. Moreover, the software presents the board’s content in prime quality, irrespective of a student’s internet speed, making it an effective solution for school systems serving communities in varying socioeconomic situations.

The key feature in ShareTheBoard’s software that supports legibility is its capability to identify obstructions and capture only written and drawn content. This is possible thanks to its proprietary content identification algorithms, which amplify written content while making obstacles (such as a teacher by the board) appear transparent. With this feature, anything written on a board or piece of paper can be instantly identified and converted into a digital vector graphic. The captured content can be saved to discrete files and uploaded directly to the school’s learning management systems for easy access. Finally, remote students can interact with their teacher’s board, by saving content at will, zooming in on any section, or even contributing digital content of their own.

We put the onus of adapting to remote communication on technology and let teachers teach as they always have

ShareTheBoard provides two simple onboarding options for schools— direct integration of its software into select video conferencing tools or the use of ShareTheBoard’s Content Camera, a desktop application version of the AI tool that effectively turns any camera into a content capturing camera. The initial setup is simple and the software then runs in the background, making it effectively a ‘zero-click’ integration for the educators who’ll benefit from the app.

“Teachers have a difficult job already. Why require them to become experts in new hardware or software just to do the job they already know? We believe that teachers should focus on teaching, students on learning and technology should work passively to facilitate this inherently human-to-human process,” says Demkowicz.

ShareTheBoard’s software has made a difference in teaching and learning for many. One experience involves the use of ShareTheBoard for flipped lectures at a public university in Texas. The software can be used to record even complex subjects, while promoting student comprehension, as it is available in a clear, digitized format for their future reference. The positive feedback from college teachers of intricate topics, from advanced mathematics to Greek, attests to the classroom-equivalent experience that ShareTheBoard provides for hybrid and remote education.

In essence, ShareTheBoard has brought a time-tested and traditional teaching aid, the board, fully into the world of remote education and learning.

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Company
ShareTheBoard

Headquarters
Kraków, Poland

Management
Marcin Demkowicz, Head of Product

Description
ShareTheBoard is a software company with a cloud-based solution that lets users share any traditional surface like whiteboard or blackboard online. The software, also called ShareTheBoard, leverages AI to identify and digitize handwritten content in real time.